Organization of a visit by U.S. Chef Tony Geraci, the subject of Cafeteria Man, in October 2016 for a weeklong series of meetings with students, teachers, parents, administrators, chefs, farmers and producers, processors and politicians.

Morgan Palmer is working with the Public Schools Branch to develop and pilot a provincial school food strategy. As part of this project three School Food Think Tanks were held across P.E.I. this fall.

Students have great ideas to improve food in Island schools - such as lowering the price of healthy meals, increasing the price of processed snacks, and providing homemade meals with good quality ingredients. They also think the students could be involved in meal planning and preparation.

The following video links contain content on this School Food Environment Initiative. Nine schools are prepared to pilot a new school food program for PEI.

At our Annual General Meeting of April 11, 2015, the PEI Home and School Federation passed a resolution (see attached) calling for the establishment of the fully-funded provincial lunch program for all PEI students.

The PEI Home and School Federation is the umbrella organization of local “home and school” and “parent council” organizations in 55 schools across Prince Edward Island. We bring together parents, guardians, teachers, administrators and staff to promote the total well-being of children and the highest standards of education for each child in the province.

The Prince Edward Island provincial school food strategy will be a model for how all stakeholders in education can be brought together to promote their shared values for the benefit and wellbeing of all Island children.

The strategy will be developed and nurtured through a collaboration of students, parents and guardians, government departments, primary industries, cooks and chefs. The following principles will guide the implementation of the strategy.

1.We will create school environments that make healthy choices easiest for students.

A Resolution calling for a universal provincial school lunch program was successfully passed at the HSF Annual General Meeting in April 2015 and the PEI HSF continues to lead in the development of a provincial school food strategy and to work with other agencies to attain that goal.

Chef Geraci is on Prince Edward Island for a week at the invitation of the PEI Home and School Federation; he is visiting many individuals and groups involved in growing, processing, preparing and eating food, and the visit to Epekwitk Gardens provided him with an opportunity to see up close how healthy local food is being produced at scale through community initiative. In conversations with Chief Brian Francis, staff and volunteers of the project, and members of the local community, he was able to share his own experiences with community-scale agriculture, and to suggest ways in which the Epekwitk Gardens could become part of the Island-side school food system.

The meal they cooked – from a variety of local, healthy ingredients – was shared by a small group of home and school volunteers around a table where local, healthy school food was the topic of the day.

Chef Geraci is on Prince Edward Island this week at the invitation of the PEI Home and School Federation to shine light on our project to introduce a universal school lunch program to the Island's schools; he has done this in other jurisdictions, and is here to share his insights and experiences with Islanders.

The resolution from Montague Consolidated School Home and School Association and Montague Regional High School Parent Council calling for the establishment of a Provincial Lunch Program has been updated following from a meeting with the PEI Healthy Eating Alliance and some additional research spurred by the meeting. The resolution has been broadened to include all children, and the “whereas” clauses have been supplemented with additional references.